


A Thousand Different Ways

by devotchka



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Established Relationship, Fingerfucking, Knifeplay, M/M, Power Exchange, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:06:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25022875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devotchka/pseuds/devotchka
Summary: Gladio can't help smiling like an idiot. It's not very dominant. "Do you have any idea how gorgeous you are like this?" He asks.Ignis smiles, too. "That wasn't at all what I was expecting when I asked for knives." He replies.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 3
Kudos: 61





	A Thousand Different Ways

Gladio isn’t a stranger to knives. He owns one – dangerous and scalpel sharp – and he’s had plenty of excuses to wield it. A small number of scars on his body come from the always unexpected pulling of knives mid-fight, and, with all his experience, he feels nothing less than capable with a blade in his hand.

That might make it challenging to explain away the thudding in his chest as he holds the same weapon again, except that this time it’s markedly unusual. For one thing there’s no screaming, no chaos, no dimly lit, bloodthirsty, monstrous gatherings. This is his bedroom, bright and quiet.

For another thing, the person below him is Ignis.

He’s gorgeous. It’s an observation that never leaves Gladio’s mind for long. It lingers particularly now, with him completely undressed, with his legs spread around him, with cold metal pressed against his throat.

Gladio’s grip on the knife is careful and delicate. A slip up here, with something so sharp, would be costly. Ignis looks completely at ease. Really, he looks a bit more than that. There’s an unmistakable, unashamed lust in those emerald-green eyes of his. Violence always makes him want so deeply.

The thing with Ignis is that being powerless isn’t humiliating to him. Not when it’s Gladio, and they’ve done this before. Not when he knows where it leads, how good it’ll feel, how high a strong rush of pain gets him. He can’t possibly be humiliated by that. It encourages him to play the part of obedience well, like a memorized role, without fear of the unknown. He trusts in Gladio effortlessly.

Ignis looks up at him and waits for him to make his move. This isn’t a rape fantasy; there won’t be any saying no, or any asking to stop. This is something openly given. It’s something he _asked_ for.

As his knife brushes against the soft skin along Ignis's neck, Gladio remembers the conversations they had for days about this. He remembers deciding tonight would be the night, remembers asking permission, remembers how calmly Ignis stripped and got in bed at his command – no big deal, just experimenting with deadly weapons.

It’s not particularly dominant of him, but he can’t help his habit of constantly appreciating the small things. “You were right.” He admits. “You do look good like this.”

Below him, Ignis smirks a bit at that, probably thinking that Gladio is too sentimental for his own good, ever the patient one.

It doesn’t last very long. He leans back, kneeling in between Ignis's spread legs, beginning to let the sharp end of the blade travel down his body as he does. He inches across the delicate center of his throat down to one side of his collarbone. “You were right about how much I’d like this, too.” He says.

He watches the knife on its downward path, the way it digs into Ignis's skin ever so gently, deliberately, skillfully avoiding bloodshed. It pushes cruelly and insistently, passing soft, unblemished as it drags down his chest. He’s suddenly aware of the way Ignis breathes just a bit heavier than normal. His chest rises slowly, deeply.

“You know, when this started,” Gladio continues, “I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about violence, but there really is something nice about watching the way you just hand yourself over to me. You stay tightly guarded so much of the time, but, for some reason, not here.”

The knife passes his chest, and Gladio pauses. He lets it dig just a bit deeper against the bottom of his ribcage and, with just the slightest motion, it leaves red skin in its wake.

Ignis's breath hitches. He stills, if possible, even more. Gladio already knows that he doesn’t want to cut him – doesn’t want to deal with things like disinfectant and blood and potential scars – but he leaves the threat there. Seeing Ignis so fragile does something to him.

“I’m beginning to wonder if it’s because you think this is too predictable.” Gladio theorizes, out loud, not watching Ignis's face for context like he might in some normal conversation. “I can see how this game is mostly yours. Sure, you’re the one bottoming and you like it to mean violence sometimes, and it’s probably intimidating when it does. But you ask for it. You suggest something; we do it; you get what you want from me.”

He stops his course low, leaving the flat of his knife resting against the width of Ignis's narrow waist. His free hand rests in between Ignis's bare legs, palm pressing against one of his inner thighs, keeping his legs open where he sits between them.

“It seems like the one who's really dominant in this is you.” Gladio says, and now he’s looking for a reaction, looking to gauge where this line of thought, so newly open and exposed, will take things. He doesn’t know what to expect – but he believes he’s right.

“Suggestions aren’t the same as judgement calls. Final decisions are yours.” Ignis replies. It’s quick, like he’s thought of this in the past himself. “It’s not my fault if you just go along with whatever I say.”

“Is that really how you want it to be?”

“Why would I give you that control if I didn’t?”

Gladio doesn’t know for sure, but he has some ideas. The lack of a straightforward ‘yes’ makes his answer feel more like a maybe, like a deflection, like he isn’t sure because he hasn’t been there before. Maybe not with anyone.

He doesn’t make room for new speeches, leaving the establishment of obedience fresh and indisputable, letting the blunt transition catch Ignis off guard again as he decides, “Okay, so it’s whatever _I_ want to do then.”

Ignis starts to nod like that much should be obvious.

“Touch yourself for me.”

It’s clearly not what he expected – to be doing something instead of having something done _to_ him – and it’s impressive how easily that throws him off. He blushes. His mouth opens, probably to complain, and yet the words don’t come immediately. When they do, they’re lost. “I’m sorry?” He asks.

“You heard me. We both know what this does to you,” Gladio replies, “so show me.”

Just like knives, this is something they’ve never shared – something he doesn’t even know if Ignis does. Still, it’s something he’s had done to him: just not so boxed in like this, not with an audience, not on command. Ignis hesitates.

Gladio doesn’t. He takes Ignis’s hand and pulls it down for him, in between his legs. “Two fingers. Don’t be gentle.”

To his credit, he’s always been one to rise to a challenge and he doesn’t disobey, doesn’t waste time slicking up his fingers. He closes his eyes as he pushes into himself, just one finger, like he can’t look at him like this.

If he’s truly humiliated the resulting moan he bites back only suggests that he gets off on that much, and as he works in a slow in and out motion Gladio takes a second to process just what the hell they’re doing, what pushed things to such points.

Ignis looks so beautiful when he’s nervous, Gladio thinks, so down to earth. It’s an uncommon sight. It isn’t normal for Ignis to feel out of his depth.

He knows what he’s doing. He spreads his legs wider as he takes more, and both of his fingers push deeper on the next thrust. He’s settling into a rhythm he must like. He’s relaxing.

“You’re a natural.” Gladio observes, sounding at least somewhat detached, really working to hide just how hot he thinks that is in favor of making sure they’re both focused on the same things – Ignis’s inexperience here, how he’s doing this to himself because he’s been told to.

He plays with the knife a bit, letting it wander down towards his thighs, and then in between them, mere inches from the rough motions of Ignis’s hand. He watches the gentle in and out of Ignis’s fingers, the way his hips slowly, gently angle into the movement, ever careful of the blade against his skin.

As soon as Ignis's composure slips again, and he moans under his breath, Gladio tells him, "Do it faster."

Ignis obeys.

Gladio is aching to fuck him, but he thinks he does well with shoving that desire deep down. He twists his frustration into something he can burn on being cruel, something he can channel into seeing more of Ignis's helpless side, into making this even better for him.

He digs the blade into Ignis's skin just a bit harder, until he can see it pressing an indent into his skin, threatening to cut.

"Don't move." He says, but he doesn't think it's well registered; Ignis is panting, and his hips are rolling towards his hand, and Gladio has to be careful of those motions.

"Please." Ignis breathes, and Gladio's heart skips a beat.

"I know." He replies. "You thought it'd be me doing that to you, didn't you?"

The rejection somehow has Ignis moaning under him, and Gladio's never wanted him more in his life, but he insists on patience and waits. If he were doing whatever he wanted he would be fucking him right now, but the thing Gladio is realizing about power exchange -- the thing that keeps him interested -- is that it's not as lopsided as it looks in porn.

This isn't inherently about him getting what he wants without question, or about Ignis being abused into obedience. This thing Gladio is doing is for Ignis, for the sake of his emotions and his limits, and he's melting into it, being made to explore some side of himself that's raw and untouched.

He's that kind of vulnerably uncomfortable that Gladio knows he wants to be.

Ignis adds a third finger without being forced to. Gladio wonders how many people have gotten to see him like this. How many other men have pulled him apart and made him into such a needy, frantic mess? Almost positively no one but him.

Despite the cruelty of holding Ignis at knifepoint, he leans down and kisses him gently, cupping his face softly, knowing that Ignis wants it harder, wants to keep wanting. He's openly grinding his hips up into him, and Gladio enjoys those desperate little sounds he makes against his mouth, the way he needs him so deeply.

Ignis is working at himself frantically, the friction and the way he fucks himself and that slight contact pushing himself somewhere close, and Gladio just enjoys that wildness for a while, those porn star moans. And then he switches things up again.

When Gladio breaks their next kiss, he replaces the affection by shoving his knife up against Ignis's jawline and forcing his head to tip back. "You are such a slut, Ignis." He says.

Ignis's hips buck into him again. " _Oh_ my god." He moans.

"You get off on it, don't you?"

He can feel how hard he is as proof, rubbing up against his leg; he can tell how fast his fingers are working, how close he is on just the thought.

"I'm holding a knife to your throat and it's no trouble at all." Gladio points out. "You'll take anything so long as the end result is getting my dick in you."

To prove his point, the knife goes away, carelessly dropped over the edge of the bed. He doesn't need it with Ignis already exactly how he wants him.

He knows what a game all of this pain stuff is to Ignis; he knows that it doesn't bother him like not getting what he wants does. His hand, now free, lingers over the width of Ignis's neck, and it denies him any pressure.

He watches as Ignis's mouth drops open, his back arching. A steady stream of begging and moaning and Gladio's name escapes him as his fingers ram in deep and he bears down on his prostate. Judging by his volume, and judging by the way his free hand grasps the neck of Gladio's top in a death grip, he guesses that Ignis hasn't gotten off like this in a very long time.

Good. That means that he was right in all his guessing; that means that Ignis feels known; that means Gladio is taking care of him exactly as he's supposed to. It fills him with a strange sense of pride and love.

Ignis is panting as he comes down from his high, exhausted and probably overstimulated. He slips his fingers out quickly, and as Gladio takes a second to look at him he looks right back. "Gladio. That was..." He searches for the words. He fails. "I don't know. I can't think."

Gladio knows. He's more than pleased to have brought him there, and he's ungodly aroused by it.

"I had no idea when we first met that you were into these things." He replies, and Ignis is too worn out to complain, too worn out to notice him working open his jeans. "But it makes sense, doesn't it? You want someone to just swoop in and make all these decisions for you. You want thing to be simple and easy?"

Ignis, blissed out beyond having pride, just nods.

"Lucky for you, then, that you're mine now. And all I want from you is obedience."

Ignis finally puts the pieces together once Gladio is lining up with him, the tip of his cock pushing against that delicate, sensitive space he'd already had him abuse so thoroughly. Ignis's hips jerk away just slightly, some disapproving sound coming from his mouth, but it's easy to pull him back. Just like he'd expected from him.

"We're not done yet." Gladio says.

Ignis's legs are shaking -- it feels at times like his entire body is trembling -- and he still takes it, opening his legs so that Gladio can push into him. There's no time to complain, or to say anything, before he's struggling to adjust. What he did to himself makes it a much easier process, but compared to a couple of fingers Gladio is enormous, and Ignis is already overstimulated.

"You're mine." Gladio tells him, and knows that Ignis is thinking about just what it means.

"Oh, fuck. _Gladio_."

This is what Ignis wanted, for himself to be pushed, for someone else to completely call the shots -- _really_ call them -- and not just let him top from the bottom.

All he has to do like this is lie back and take it, just be someone's toy, and he practically sobs the first time Gladio recklessly pushes into that spot of his one more time. It's hard not to, filling him like this.

Ignis's legs wrap around his waist. He's already twitching inside, tight and getting tighter, and Gladio acts like he doesn't care but he's definitely going to make this good for him, make this too much, and leave him wrecked.

It's going easier than he initially thought. Ignis is already a mess over the foreplay before this, his mouth already running, telling Gladio how good he feels, and Gladio doesn't know if he should keep saying cruel things -- if he should tell him this isn't about him -- but he likes this. He likes hearing Ignis talk that way. He likes everything they've done and everything they're doing right now, and since it's all good he just lets it continue naturally.

He presses his mouth to the curve of Ignis's throat and bites down just a little too hard. He listens to the way Ignis's breath hitches in pain and feels the way his entire body tenses up beneath him, his hands slipping under Gladio's shirt, feeling out firm muscles and digging his nails into his skin.

Their movements are frantic. Ignis is begging Gladio not to stop, telling him he's so close, he's _right there_ , acting exactly like he's going to come and yet Gladio is shocked to feel him do it a second time.

He glances at him; he watches his head thrown back, no more words, just sounds and moaning, and Gladio rams into that spot with aggression to prolong things. Gladio wants to tell him, then, how much he loves everything about him. Way too much.

Instead he cups Ignis's face, tugging him towards him and quieting his moans with more kissing, more closeness, everything feeling both transcendental and entirely too much.

When they're done, Gladio is too worn out to undress. He settles for just fixing his jeans and telling himself that he'll change before bed.

Beside him, Ignis is totaled for the night. He stays flat on his back and closes his eyes, breathing hard, probably riding out the tail end of an endorphin high the likes of which he's never felt before.

When Ignis finally looks over at him he's got that warm, satisfied look on his face -- the one that Gladio thinks might just be reserved for him.

He can't help smiling like an idiot. It's not very dominant. "Do you have any idea how gorgeous you are like this?" He asks.

Ignis smiles, too, but he's more reserved. "That wasn't at all what I was expecting when I asked for knives." He replies.

"I got tired of letting you top from the bottom."

"Did you, really?"

"I knew it didn't fit what you actually wanted."

"That you did." Ignis replies, and Gladio knows there are things left unspoken, things like _I only do this for you_ , things that he knows ultimately don't matter. Ignis is happy. He is happy. There are a thousand different ways you can love someone, Gladio thinks, and this one's good.


End file.
